


Curvature

by ProfessorDrarry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 07:29:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorDrarry/pseuds/ProfessorDrarry
Summary: It's just the subtle turns. The way he smells or the way his hips twist in your direction. It's easy to make a list when asked. The list of times he fell for you.





	Curvature

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally no idea what this one is or where it came from. It's really just a drabble. It is raw and sort of painful for some reason. So...

_Can you pinpoint it? Can you place on a map, one of time instead of locations, the moments that mattered? Can you say you love me and know exactly from where, from when? Do you still remember the shift, the punctuation, the subtle pauses that led to us being ‘us’?_

_I can, he whispers. I can, I will. If you'll only stay._

* * *

The first time, it was the silvery blond strands of hair in sun.

The day was sunny, and it made Harry angry; how dare there be sun on the day when the only retribution for lives cut short would be served. He had a bad feeling, foreboding and frustration, fear mingling with fury.

But when he flung himself out onto the roof, his magic sparking and flickering his anger in a physical snap around him, he froze dead in spot. He noticed, without understanding, the strands. They flung themselves in a wild arc around a head that stood a full head height above his own. They shimmered in a chaotic swirl, looking ethereal in an unnecessarily enticing way, and Harry felt himself draw in a breath.

He ground his teeth together and forced himself to stay in place, even though he wanted to sling curses and hexes, death glares and lasting marks. He watched a moment longer, though, because Malfoy was slashing at the air in his own murderous rage. Suddenly, the blond hair noticed his presence, and whipped itself around. Harry was glad to be holding his wand as he shielded curse after curse, as he sent back as good as he got.

Yet, both sets of curses grew weaker and weaker, until finally, Malfoy’s arms fell at his sides, both of them breathing heavily. It made no sense to Harry's exhausted mind that Draco Malfoy’s anger matched his own. Lucius Malfoy was free. Thirteen others, also free. Sanctions, yes. Reparation money, of course. But free. Maintaining title, remaning alive and out of Azkaban.

“Why are you so angry? You should be jumping for joy!” Harry screamed over the whipping wind in the summer sun.

“Which shows how little you bloody well know, Potter. Just leave me alone,” Malfoy threw back, walking past him swiftly and without a second glance, his formal robes in House of Malfoy colours whipping so violently that they snapped.

Still, the last thing Harry remembered was the shimmer of each strand.

* * *

 

The second time, the problem was curvature. The curve of a spine, the cant of hips, the stretch of long and lean body against the night sky.

Hermione had sent him to the roof, sending him away with a violent, warning glare and a muttered, ‘just don’t Harry, none of us have the time’.

He’d burst out onto the roof of the hospital in much the same way he had all those years ago, at the Ministry. Before Malfoy had abandoned his family home, before he had renounced Astoria Greengrass and his title, before he had returned to the wizarding world quietly and with very little fuss. Before Harry had quit being an Auror before he’d even started, and before any of them had cause to speak to each other constantly. It had been years, and sometimes Harry forgot that day on the roof, forgot the hair, for whole weeks at a time. It had been so long.

The evening was the same as that day, too; clear and bright, presumably full of stars somewhere beyond the bright lights of downtown London. It was so rare, to see the sky, that Harry half expected to see the bright pinpricks of light when he looked up. He couldn’t of course, but still, the night felt very similar to that day and it made Harry’s head ache.

Only this time, he didn’t find curses and anger. He found pain. He found a body bent onto a railing, leaning on arms, shifting back and forth in an attempt to stretch out aching muscles that had been twisted into unnatural postures for so many hours. The line of this body caught Harry off guard, but not so much as the pain in the attached face.

“Hermione needs you back on the floor,” he said carefully.

“I’ll be down in a moment,” Malfoy replied, his tone clipped and cold.

Harry nodded and turned to leave, but he paused in his retreat.

“It isn’t your fault, Malfoy,” he said carefully.

“I am aware that it wasn’t my _fault_ Potter,” Malfoy sighed, his head on his hands on the railing, drawing Harry’s eyes back to the curve of his spine. “She was 110 with a weak heart. But the ache in my feet, the pain in my wrists, the hours and hours of trying to keep her here anyway, those _are_ mine. They are all mine. I have five more hours of shift before I can go home and shower to remove the smell, drink a whiskey, and sleep...I just- It might not have been my _fault,_  but it is my _loss._ And I need a moment.”

Harry nodded though Malfoy could not see, and watched as the man used the balls of his fists to massage his temples which sat on his arms still, connecting him to the railing, giving his aching casting arm a break. Harry was not a healer, but he knew that ache, knew that pain, the one that lodged itself into the space between the ribs and stayed there for days and hours. He was not a healer but he healed, he knew pain and suffering, and he wanted, beyond all reason, to fix the pain he saw now.

“Do you ever think about them, Potter?” Malfoy asked, sudden in the weighty silence. He moved slowly, lifting his head, arching his neck, stretching the angle of his back in the opposite direction, like a cat after a nap but much more deadly. Harry felt his jaw tighten.

“Think about who?” He asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

“The ones who died.”

Harry’s heart stopped beating. His mouth grew dry. He had to clear his throat twice before he could respond, “Malfoy, I never _stop_ thinking about them.”

Malfoy tilted his head all the way back, staring at the cold, grey night that hung over head, as though trying to stare through the hazy light and search out the moon. Finally, he swung himself back, standing upright and stretching his shoulders out once more, guiding Harry’s eyes down the length of his form.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me either.”

He left Harry on the second rooftop of their lives, just as speechless as the first time.

* * *

The third time was an accidental sniff. Proximity born of exhaustion. He’d gone to the locker room with a question, he was almost sure of it, but he was instantly distracted. Malfoy, with damp hair and the wry expression that Harry associated with his natural resting state. His white t-shirt, standard issue beneath Healer’s robes. Soft denims and robust trainers, the type they all wore for long shifts.

On seeing him pause, Malfoy offered Harry a rare laugh, albeit at his expense.

“Merlin, you look like a first year,” he mused.

“I _am_ a first year,” Harry retorted.

“Oh trust me,” Malfoy scoffed. “I am extremely aware of that fact. I’ve fixed no fewer than seven of your mistakes this week.”

“What? When?” Harry bristled.

But Malfoy was closing his locker, and he was walking towards Harry, and in the fuzzy warmth of the too small room, Harry _smelled_ Malfoy.

He smelt like promises. And poor decision making. And momentary lapses in judgement. Malfoy smelt like delicious, illicit conduct and extremely inappropriate mental images, combined with something spicier; cloves? Teak? Even cinnamon, maybe. Harry felt himself go slightly dizzy and shook his head.

“Well, where should I begin to innumerate your incompetencies, oh Golden One,” Malfoy was drawling, picking up his bag and moving toward the door. “Care to explain to me,” he continued, properly scolding now. “Why I shouldn’t _report_ you for administering noon-doses without an attending present?”

Harry knew this was a game played with first years. He wasn’t a normal first year; he knew the hospital backward and forward, and he knew it was safe to give noon doses without permission since they were the same as morning doses. If he was really bothered, Malfoy _could_ technically make an issue of this, but they both knew that nothing would happen to Harry, and Malfoy would just get annoyed. And truthfully, Harry was too tired to play along.

“Do you want a curry?” He said instead.

“I–” Malfoy began harshly. Harry watched as the white hot spark of retort died on his lips when his brain registered the lack of arguing back. “Um, what?”

“It’s just, we were going to go, the others sent me to ask if you want to come. We’re all off shift,” Harry said, not bothering to hide himself as he flung his robes in the bin and pulled a new shirt out of his bag. He was too tired for decorum. He was too tired for _curry,_ honestly, but he knew if he didn’t eat before going home, he’d crash out for sixteen hours having not eaten a decent meal in 24 hours.

Malfoy floundered slightly.

“They–” he started. “They don’t usually ask me.”

“Yes, well they said you never come, so they stopped asking. Sounds like you, to be honest. I said I had to change anyway, and I’d ask if I saw you. You don’t have to, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Malfoy echoed, sounding a touch like himself, but also seeming very lost for words.

“Just curry, Malfoy,” Harry said, heading up the stairs. “You’re making this bigger than it is.”

Malfoy's face shifted silently, sifting through emotions, trying to land on one. Harry wondered at their connection, the span of time hed worked side by side with Malfoy. When exactly had he memorized enough of the man’s face to notice a carousel his emotions. Finally, Malfoy just huffed.

“Potter, I mean this with more respect than you are going to take it,” Malfoy said, pushing his hands through his hair and wafting more _scent_ Harry’s way. “But when you are me, everything is bigger than it seems.”

Malfoy came for curry. For the rest of the week, every possible hospital employee made a point of telling Harry how bizarre this was, how rare. How extraordinary.

Harry thought it was probably still just curry.

* * *

It might have been the most important one, but Harry usually didn't dwell on the fourth time. It wasn't his finest moment, but it certainly belonged here, in this list. He remembered, for whatever reason, that it was a Thursday. The middle of the night, actually, so halfway between a Thursday and a Friday. He was finally used to these shifts, the ones that dragged him through the midway point of one day turning into another.

“You should grab a nap, Potter,” Tavish had all but ordered. “You're the only one on doubles tonight and it's slow.”

He went out, and down to fifth, well known to be the quieter of the two on call rooms.

Only, this night, it wasn't. This night, the room was occupied. _Very_ occupied.

Harry watched far longer than he meant to; he watched as one back writhed, knees grasped tightly. He watched heads thrown back, watched mouths thrust in groaned ecstasy, watched what he knew to be a filthy slapping.

He watched, but did not hear because his ears had instantly filled with a rush of blood and anger upon seeing silver blond hair flop back and forth as the man attached to it rut shamelessly into one of his fellow first year healers, whose hands went back and forth between the metal bars of the bunk he was kneeling on and his own very hard cock.

When Harry finally backed himself out of the room, he had to pause and catch his own breath. Any attempt sto reconcile his anger or analyse his feelings were immediately interrupted by the incessant beep of his wand alarm, and he pitched through the next few hours on a frenetic adrenaline. The emergency room didn't leave much space for thought, and as he went to the locker room, he had quite forgotten his earlier discovery.

Until he walked straight into Malfoy, who looked tired but alert. Patiently, he stepped aside, Healer code to make room for the more exhausted, the more disheveled.

“Bad night?” Malfoy said sympathetically.

“Worse than yours, I'd imagine,” Harry bit out, his anger suddenly resurfacing for no reason other than spicy scented sympathy.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, “And what does that mean, exactly?”

“Oh nothing,” Harry threw out, acid in his voice. “Give my regards to Adrien, would you?”

Malfoy’s eyes flickered dangerously. He clearly had not seen Harry in the room during…that. He stepped one step forward, moving himself into Harry's space.

“Look,” Malfoy spat. “Regardless of your personal _issues_ with me, what I get up to in my own time is none of your business. What, you have a problem with my sexuality now, too?”

“No,” Harry heard himself spit. “I just—”

But Malfoy had advanced again. He was backing Harry into a wall, likely thinking it was a threat. Instead, Harry felt his words die on his tongue, felt his face flush, felt years of _noticing_ catch up with him, having been provided with an unfortunately detailed mental image.

“I didn't know you were gay,” he finished lamely.

Malfoy studied his face for a moment, forcing Harry to consider his grey eyes at a very close proximity. One he wasn't entirely comfortable with, honestly.

“And now, try saying what you were really going to say,” Malfoy whispered after a beat.

Harry swallowed.

Malfoy waited.

“I just thought you had better taste,” Harry finally muttered, staring bald faced at Malfoy’s unblinking gaze.

Malfoy stepped even closer, so that his breath lifted Harry's fringe when he said, “Oh I do, Harry Potter. But we can't always wait for what we want. We have to take what we get.”

The sentence, the proximity, Harry's never failing ability to get a hard on at exactly the wrong time. It didn't matter what the final, back breaking crack was. He leaned forward in that moment, and found Malfoy already ready, already kissing him. Natural as breathing, as though they'd been doing it for years. Firm but gentle hands pushed him the last step into the door, and then his whole body was anchored, held, his hair gently grasped.

Harry felt the tension he was never without melt out of him, and he moved his head more earnestly, more gratefully, against those naturally caring lips. He wasn't sure he'd ever be willing to let go. 

* * *

There's a hundred more he is forgetting, a thousand tiny moments since. He can feel them in the hairs that stand on edge by being challenged like this. He can hear them in the scrape of a chair being pushed back. He sees them in the pain of a moment ebbing away.

Harry Potter falls rarely silent though. He falls silent and he feels alone, and it's strange because it's been so long since he has felt that way.

He has seen so much death. And so much life. He is ecstatic that not all those moments now revolve around war, and at the same time, he mourns them all in the exact same way. He thinks about them all, all the time. But not as he used to. Not dangerously. He's just… Content to live and be grateful and to learn from what before.

He says all of this and he watches as grey eyes soften, and without feeling too gleeful, he puts his panic away.

They'll be okay.

They will.

* * *

_You think it's enough, don't you? It's enough to remember and reminisce? To tell me snapshots from the past, from the beginning, and leave it at that._

_It is, though. Isn't it? It is._

_Yes._

_Yes, it's enough._


End file.
